Diner En Blanc Blog: An Overwhelming Experience

Los Angeles All-White Party Causes A Friday Night Scene In DTLA

By Kevin Wilkerson, PubClub.com Blogger

Sometimes, being a blogger gets you a few pretty cool privileges, including invitations to events to which you otherwise would not likely attend. Or perhaps not even think to attend.

But you go because life is better and your blog or website is better because you’re experiencing and writing about something that’s new to you and many of your readers.

So this is how I wound up in downtown Los Angeles on a Friday night in a public space between the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and the Mark Taper Forum dressed head to toe in white, around 2,000 people also dressed in all white who were seated at white-covered tables, waiving white napkins and having dinner and wine in the middle of a fountained courtyard.

It was the Los Angeles version of Diner en Blanc – or “Dinner in White” – a wildly popular private gathering in cities around the world that has a waiting list bigger than those fortunate enough to receive an invitation. It’s a scene that was both overwhelming and mesmerizing at the same time.

I stood in place for several moments to soak up the scene, but instead of being like a sponge I was more like a statue. I could not move.

That’s because I could hardly believe what I was seeing. There were people that filled up my entire vision, straight ahead and from left to right. They were all dressed in white of various styles – some a bit casual while others went all out and a few even in costumes and white masks – and many had decorated their tables as if they were at a themed house party.

In fact, they brought their own tables. And chairs. And many of them their food, too.

As I looked at them, I kept asking myself the same questions over and over again: Who are all these people? What inspired them to come here? How did they hear about it? And why the heck would they gladly haul their own gear to set it up in a place they didn’t know until two hours before it began to be with a bunch of people they don’t know?

I interviewed a few people about it and while I really never did get those specific questions answered, I did get enough of a feel for it to understand. Which, frankly, is more important because I could relate to them.

In many ways, it’s like us Parrotheads going to a Jimmy Buffett concert. Like Buffett, you don’t just show up to it. It takes planning, execution and passion. And once you’re at the event, there’s great reward in it.

And, like Buffett, there’s not a frown in the crowd. Everyone is happy, smiling, laughing, cheering and dancing.

For people at Diner en Blanc, this is their Margaritaville. And I can certainly relate to that place.